The Reality Thief Read online

  The Reality Thief

  Deplosion: Book 1

  Paul Anlee

  Darian Publishing House

  Chatham, Ontario, Canada

  The Reality Thief

  Deplosion: Book One

  Rule the Chaos, rule the Universe

  The already controversial Dr. Darian Leigh has outdone himself this time with a magnanimous gift to humanity: a device that can create whole new universes and alter the laws of physics. The theory alone sets the worlds of science, religion, and politics ablaze. Now, if only he could get it working. Little does he know, it already does. Lines between good and evil get blurry when a misguided lab associate and the scheming leader of an influential church join forces to harness the power for the glory of God. What—or who—are they willing to sacrifice to possess the machine? Mired in secrets, betrayal, good intentions, and murder, the struggle to control it will rage for eons.

  Canadian author Paul Anlee writes provocative, epic sci-fi in the style of Asimov, Heinlein, Asher, and Reynolds, stories that challenge our assumptions and stretch our imagination. Literary, fact-based, and fast-paced, the Deplosion series explores themes in philosophy, politics, religion, economics, AI, VR, nanotech, synbio, quantum reality, and beyond.

  For Courtenay

  The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but “That's funny...”

  ―Isaac Asimov

  Prologue

  In the beginning was the Chaos. The Chaos was infinite and eternal, dark and silent. It didn’t roil with turbulent fire or explosions for there was nothing to burn, no oxygen to fuel the flames, no hydrogen atoms to fuse in the hearts of stars, no uranium atoms to split. The physical laws that made chemical and nuclear reactions possible didn’t exist, at least not in any consistent manner.

  But the Chaos was not inert, quite the contrary. Endless experiments played out among the random virtual particles emerging spontaneously from the nothingness of the quantum vacuum. They arose in pairs, balancing positive and negative energy, matter and antimatter. They disappeared with no enduring effect, no more than inconsequential ripples in the fields, soon-forgotten perturbations.

  Why were there virtual particles? Why was there anything? Because there always had been. The strains of the infinite quantum vacuum were relieved by producing virtual particles. That was reason enough.

  The Chaos had always been, even though nothing in it had ever existed, not strictly speaking, not even for a nanosecond. In the absence of consistent causal relationships between different bits of virtual matter, Time’s Arrow had no direction; its measure was meaningless. It would be pointless to think about what came before, since “before” was an endless recess of immeasurable time, never reachable.

  The timelessness of the Chaos allowed unlimited opportunity for every possible kind of virtual particle to come into existence. Random chance led to diversity among the particles. Physical laws rose out of the evolutionary clay of the Chaos and were spread by resonances between neighboring virtual particles. Where resonances overlapped, standing waves formed, causing real particles to be born and releasing excess energy. The real particles gave rise to self-propagating clusters, tiny islands of budding reality in a virtual ocean. Islands of real matter grew outward, transforming the Chaos.

  Where particle interactions led to domains of greater stability, those regions expanded. Simple, short-lived universes were born and collapsed, their histories lost forever. Stability provided the selective pressure through which the universe evolved naturally from the Chaos.

  The tumultuous experiments continued unbridled until two particularly stable domains came together, their resonances uniquely complementary. The rate of formation of real matter accelerated. From virtual nothingness, new matter exploded into existence, releasing tremendous energy in the process. The resonances expanded outward faster than the speed of light, driving Creation into the void. Space grew hotter and hotter. Out of the nowhere and nothing, out of the eternal and infinite Chaos, the universe unfolded like a fiery, blossoming flower.

  1

  Sharon Leigh’s hand trembled as the syringe met her bare arm. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  I’m not doing anything wrong. The FDA and university bureaucrats are just trying to wear us down. Peer reviews, teaching reviews, funding reviews, ethics reviews. Why won’t they just let us work in peace? They know it’s safe; they have all the data they need.

  She exhaled and tried to relax. When she opened her blue-gray eyes, she was ready. Determined. She’d rolled the left sleeve of her lab coat up past the elbow. The thin vein was barely visible beneath the skin but she knew she could find it with the sharp tip of the needle.

  Years of practice finding the tail veins of rats has served me well. She pictured her arm as a big, scaly tail, and laughed. It came out as a nervous snort that threatened to break into something bigger.

  Okay, get a grip, and get on with it. She took another slow breath. The lab was brightly lit but quiet, except for the gentle hum of equipment. She could hear herself breathing. The last of her grad students had wandered off a few hours ago, and the cleaners weren’t due until 2:00 a.m., a full hour away.

  She perched on the edge of a stool at the lab bench farthest from the door, where it would be difficult for anyone to see her through the windows into the hallway. The lab paraphernalia covering the bench between her and the window into the hallway acted as a convenient privacy screen should anyone pass by.

  Beside the rack in front of her, an empty plastic centrifuge tube lay on its side, its hinged lid popped open: DNND 3.2-003. This was their newest version, the one that would lead to real success.

  Am I crazy?—she asked herself for the hundredth time—or just too impatient? She knew the risks better than anyone. It was her invention, after all. After four long years of playing around the edges, it was time for a proper test. A human test.

  She pressed the needle to her skin at a shallow angle, to better follow the vein underneath. Her skin dimpled under the pressure.

  The lab door banged opened, and the clatter of the janitor’s tin pail on wheels followed.

  Sharon jumped and let out a small yelp. The needle pricked her arm, drawing a miniscule bead of blood.

  “Oh, sorry,” the cleaner called out in the direction of the yelp. He caught a sliver of white lab coat in the back of the room, barely visible behind the benches and the clutter of equipment. “I thought everyone had gone home.”

  “That’s alright,” Sharon replied. She put her finger over the tiny nick and pressed against it. “I’m kind of in the middle of something, though. Could you come back in ten minutes?”

  The man craned his neck to get a better look at who was doing the asking. It sounded like Dr. Leigh, but he wasn’t sure. Scientists. He stared at his bucket and mop, trying to come up with a good reason why he shouldn’t alter his schedule. “Sure, I guess I could do Dr. Strauss’ lab first.”

  “Thanks. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  He gripped the mop handle and steered the bucket back into the hallway, letting it bump against the hard surfaces a little harder than usual. The door closed gently behind him.

  Sharon took another deep breath. She dabbed a cotton swab in the ethanol and wiped the drop of blood from her arm. Pressing her lips together, she pushed the needle into her arm. It stung a little, but not as much as she’d expected. Here goes nothing.

  She plunged the contents into her vein, withdrew the needle, and pressed a clean cotton ball to the puncture point. It was done.

  2

  Six months later...

  On the day she died for the first time, Sharon Leigh began her morning as alway
s, with a run along the Charles River.

  “See you later, hon. Don’t forget, you’re picking me up from the downtown office tonight instead of at the lab. Six o’clock still okay?” she called over her shoulder as she laced up her running shoes.

  “Oh, that’s right! You’ve got a board meeting this aft. I forgot,” Paul confessed. It was always something.

  “Yep, another board meeting.” Sharon scrunched her face in exaggerated distaste.

  “Sure, six o’clock works fine. Downtown. Got it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you tonight. Love you,” she said as the door swung shut behind her.

  She set out from the suburbs of Lower Allston at a comfortable pace, crossing over to Cambridge and continuing east for the five-mile jog that would take her past Harvard to MIT and her lab in the Stata Center. It was a beautiful June morning, not a hint of rain in sight. Her light backpack, carrying a change of clothes, jostled rhythmically against her back.

  Her new work was going well. The silicene-based nanotube sensors she’d developed in her PhD research were great for a first attempt, but this new approach was so much better. She used to have to painstakingly grow the devices atom-by-atom on existing microcircuits. It took weeks of careful dedication to make one chip, and weeks after that to grow neural cell cultures on the surface. Not anymore.

  Her success with the chips had led to some good publications, but that’s all they’d been good for. She would never be able to introduce them to the general public as a human-machine interface, not at the current cost of manufacturing. Besides, the only way to implant the sensors involved brain surgery, and they’d never get approval to do that, not in her lifetime.

  So Sharon came up with a better idea. In ordinary English—her default “cocktail party" explanation—she created a way for a person’s own brain cells to construct microscopic machines that would enable them to become a walking super-computer.

  In geek-speak, the new work combined sensory semiconductor nanoparticles with RNA that encoded a silicene synthase enzyme. She named this RNA-semiconductor hybrid device a Dynamic Neural Nano Dot, or DNND, for short.

  Describing her work usually elicited one of two responses, either, “Oh, so you're one of those transhumanist scientists hell-bent on altering humanity,” or, “Dendies! Love the name.” Both responses were equally annoying.

  Sharon gave herself over to the peaceful, meditative thrumming of her footsteps as she ran. The scenery melted away. She focused her attention on her breath and, when needed, on the traffic at the cross streets. Once she hit a good stride, she let her thoughts drift freely over the lab’s progress during the past four years.

  They had shown that DNNDs could be injected into mice without adverse effects, cross over the blood-brain barrier, and successfully organize themselves into a functional system within the brain. That alone, was a huge step in the field.

  The first generation of hybrid DNNDs only had the capability to detect neural activity. In other words, they could listen but not speak.

  The second generation could, in addition, activate synapses directly and reliably stimulate neurons. The DNNDs could now speak, as well as listen.

  With basic input and output capabilities in place, Sharon could see her way clear to developing a complete direct-to-brain interface. It was exciting, groundbreaking work. They’d quickly moved past the second generation and onto the third. The most recent generation, Version 3.2, was the fastest-growing, most efficient yet.

  Encouraged by the Institute’s trustees, Sharon had set up a spin-off company to explore the commercial potential which, everyone agreed, was enormous.

  She split the majority share evenly between herself and her husband, and offered substantial portions of the company to the two postdocs who shared in the early development of the devices.

  Thrilled at the prospect of work in the "real world," David and Nick, her postdocs turned business partners, said goodbye to the confines of the university and joined Neuro Nano Devices Inc., where they could better devote themselves to advancing both the technology and their bank accounts.

  Sharon slowed to her cool-down pace as the campus came into sight. She took a drink from her water pouch and placed a hand over her abdomen. Was she ready for the changes that were coming to her life? She didn’t dare admit to her friends that she still held deep reservations about becoming a mother—but not for the usual reasons.

  Six months ago, when she’d injected herself with the DNNDs, she was willing to accept the risk of being a human laboratory. It never occurred to her that she might become pregnant a month later. They’d been careful. And yet.

  Every scientist can tell you that “99.9% protection” does not mean 100%. But like many urban professionals, she foolishly dismissed that 0.1% risk as insignificant. Whoops.

  Weeks after the injection, she'd decided it was time to confide in her husband. She remembered thinking—Tonight’s the night, after dinner. It’ll feel so good to have everything out in the open.

  And it might have been, had she not stopped at her doctor’s office on the way to work. She’d been feeling a little “off” for a while. She thought it was probably due to the initial DNND activity but popped in for a quick check-up, just to rule out other possibilities.

  The GP had examined her and got her to leave blood and urine samples for some routine tests. He muttered something about whether she might be pregnant and suggested she return in a few days to go over the lab results. The very thought panicked her. After leaving his office, she went straight to the pharmacy next door and bought an in-home pregnancy test.

  Shortly after, sitting alone in a public washroom cubicle, Sharon couldn’t believe her eyes. She stared at the stick for a full minute before moving, forcing herself to breathe slowly and remain calm. She went back to the drugstore and picked out a couple of different tests to verify the results. They all agreed.

  No, no, no, no. This can’t be! With her free hand, she’d smoothed her hair back, away from her face. Now what? There’s no way I can tell Paul I’ve experimented on myself, not now. He’ll be furious, horrified. He’ll worry himself sick. I just can’t deal with that on top of everything else. No. Until we know the baby is healthy, no mention of my DNNDs.

  Apart from David and Nick, she hadn’t dared tell anyone about the hybrid nanotechnology growing in her brain. And she only told them because she needed their help in monitoring the lattice growth. She could still hardly believe what she'd done herself.

  Like a drunken indiscretion, there was no point regretting it after the fact; the decision was past reversing. There was nothing she could do to change the facts; all she could do was stay calm and healthy.

  She had to keep moving forward. I just needed a little time to make sure everything was going okay—she told herself. And everything is going better than okay; it is coming along beautifully.

  But, the time was fast approaching when she would have to confess what she’d done. Paul is going to give me an earful when I tell him, and rightfully so. I’d do the same if he pulled a stunt like this on me. But he’ll come around.

  Nothing to worry about—she assured herself. The particular DNNDs I injected are the safest and most refined to date. They had more than enough time to settle into my brain tissue before the baby started forming. They won’t move. The baby is not at risk and neither am I.

  The university's reaction when she told them was likely to be quite different. They are going to freak when they find out. There’s no way around that one. Self-experimentation is professional misconduct of a high order. An unforgivable sin. Apart from the ethics, and risk to their reputation, what they really care about is that it impacts insurance and risk management. It would be horrible PR should anything go wrong.

  Thankfully, I no longer work just for the university anymore. At least my business partners support my bravado. They applaud it—so long as they can distance themselves from any negative fallout.

  The risk she
’d brought on herself sometimes terrified her, but the DNND technology filled her with hope for the world. She would do whatever was necessary to move the research along.

  The complexities of human technology and human society have outstripped mainstream humanity’s ability to grasp them. The world needs this technology, and it can’t wait for the bureaucracy to catch up to the science.

  Even among her colleagues, it was rare to find people who could step outside their own frighteningly narrow specialties. Add to that the ridiculous, lowbrow public discourse during the most recent Presidential election, and it was becoming painfully clear that a bold fix was needed. Urgently. If we don’t become smarter, we’ll destroy ourselves with our foolishness. DNNDs can facilitate that leap upward; I know they can.

  She knew the FDA was only acting on general public opinion. If I could just change the fear of self-replicating nanotech, things would go a lot faster. Sure, there are some legitimate issues, but it’s not as bad as people think. Self-replicating doesn’t mean out of control.

  Sharon walked the last block to her building slowly. Her stomach growled, loudly, diverting her attention and making her smile. Okay, my diet has been a little weird, even for someone who’s pregnant.

  From the first week after the injection, the DNNDs’ demand for certain elements had pushed odd appetites on her. The RNA encoded enzyme complexes enabled the nanodots to replicate themselves from available raw materials. The enzymes called for elements found in unusual places: clay, rare earths, and other minerals. The DNNDs extracted building materials from her blood. When she lacked the necessary elements, she experienced strange and irresistible cravings. She never questioned them; she always complied. The DNNDs are taking up all the silica and metals. My blood tests look good. Everything is going to be fine.